Silicone polyethers are commonly used as surfactants. Surfactants are useful because they absorb at interfaces to lower surface and interfacial tension. Surfactants also self-associate in water to form a variety of aggregates, ranging from globular, wormlike, and disc-like micelles, to bilayer structures such as vesicles. Attractive interaction between the aggregates can lead to condensation to, for example, liquid crystal phases or so-called lyotropic liquid crystals. Knowledge therefore of surfactant self-association is important because it controls the rheology and freeze-thaw stability of the formulations, and their ability to form and stabilize emulsions and microemulsions. The stability of microstructures such as these however, depends on temperature, water contents, salt and the presence of other surfactants. By crosslinking according to the present invention, the dependency can be eliminated.
A typical silicone elastomer blend such as prepared according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,811,487 (Sep. 22, 1998), i.e., the '487 patent hereafter, will not result in ordered microstructures such as liquid crystals and vesicles. The process according to the '487 patent will not result in liquid crystals and vesicles because the crosslinking Step 2 in the '487 patent is carried out in the presence of a solvent, and this inherently results in the production of crosslinked elastomers instead of liquid crystals and/or vesicles. On the other hand, the process according to this invention will not result in crosslinked elastomers, because the crosslinking Step 2 is carried out in the presence of water instead of in the presence of a solvent as in the '487 patent.